News
Astronauts returning from spacewalks report that space carries a distinct smell of seared steak and hot metal that clings to their suits once they climb back inside
3+ hour, 1+ min ago (505+ words) Astronaut accounts of a burnt-metal smell after spacewalks are less about smelling vacuum than about what suit surfaces bring back into a repressurised airlock....
Astronauts returning from six-month missions describe a persistent 'observer' sensation " the feeling of watching their own lives from a half-step outside the frame, weeks after they're back on the ground
3+ hour, 45+ min ago (575+ words) Astronauts returning from long ISS rotations consistently describe a half-step-outside-themselves sensation that flight surgeons recognize as part of the post-mission readjustment curve " a perceptual cost of spending six months in a body that had to learn a different world....
There are roughly 4, 400 tiny explosions happening inside your body every second, as atoms of radioactive potassium quietly decay in your muscles and tissues right now " you have been faintly radioactive your entire life, and you will be for all of it
4+ hour, 15+ min ago (523+ words) ...
The default mode network burns 20% of the brain's energy doing nothing in particular " and Marcus Raichle only found it in 2001 because PET scanners kept showing the same regions lighting up between tasks
4+ hour, 37+ min ago (712+ words) The default mode network burns about a fifth of the brain's energy maintaining the inner narrative of the self. Marcus Raichle named it in 2001 after PET scans kept showing the same regions lighting up the moment subjects stopped working....
In 2004, a magnetar on the far side of the Milky Way unleashed a giant flare so intense it disturbed Earth's ionosphere from tens of thousands of light-years away " and in just 0. 2 seconds released as much energy as the Sun emits in roughly 250, 000 years.
8+ hour, 46+ min ago (26+ words) A careful look back at the 27 December 2004 giant flare from SGR 1806-20, what instruments recorded, and why the energy estimate depends on distance....
We tend to think of Neanderthals as a species that went extinct, but a Princeton geneticist found evidence of three waves of interbreeding over 250, 000 years, leading him to argue Neanderthals didn't disappear " they were absorbed into us
10+ hour, 15+ min ago (0+ words) ...
A battery does not store electricity in the way most people imagine " it stores chemical energy, and every time your phone turns on, it is harvesting a controlled imbalance between materials trying to trade electrons
13+ hour, 45+ min ago (32+ words) ...
NASA's Roman Space Telescope reaches Kennedy eight months ahead of schedule, with a Falcon Heavy launch now set for Aug. 30
14+ hour, 44+ min ago (34+ words) The next-generation observatory arrived in Florida on June 21 to begin a roughly 70-day march to the pad. NASA is targeting liftoff no earlier than Aug. 30 on a Space X Falcon Heavy....
You cannot tickle yourself, no matter how you try, because your brain predicts the touch of your own hand and cancels the sensation before you feel it
17+ hour, 45+ min ago (380+ words) Run your own fingers across your palm and almost nothing happens. Brain scans suggest the reason sits in the cerebellum, which forecasts the feel of your own movements and quietly subtracts it....